Alison Moyet

My style of singing has always been referred to 'soul' singing when it fact it's more influenced by English R&B Blues Shouting. I'm closer to Led Zeppelin as a vocalist than to Ella Fitzgerald. It was torture dealing with major labels.

My soul desires a pre-industrial world, and since I can't have that, I don't really care for anything material.

The money has always been wasted on me. I don't care for beautiful things, funnily enough. I am my father's daughter. The things that excite me are the smell of a wood-burning stove, uncultivated fields. My house is decaying and falling to pieces. It's not had the love it deserves over twenty years.

Of all the soul divas, Gladys Knight was the one for me. Knight's always been about tone and heart, none of the big showboating or extraneous doodling. She nailed a melody and only played a little around the edges like Ma Staple.

There has always been a feeling with people that they love my singing but not always the choice of material.

When I saw Adele, I thought: 'I'll give it an hour before people say I was her,' just because I was fat. When you watch 'X Factor,' you can bet your bottom dollar, every single fat singer sounds like me as far as the judges are concerned. Can you imagine if they did that with every black artist?

When you make a lot of money for a record company, they don't want you to evolve. Growing older, you naturally do.

The thing with me is, I'm both untidy and I hate mess. But I'm not untidy in communal spaces, like living rooms. My bedroom is havoc.

It was always important to me that I made a record where I really sang well, and I don't think it's happened yet. There's always a possibility with each album that I might not record again, and I wanted to produce one that I could feel was mine.

Instead of thinking that's a nice tune, you start thinking is it the right pace, is it the right tempo? That is the death nell for artists.

When you have a creative mind it doesn't stop going.

I had been with the label since I was 21. The label wanted shiny pop but I didn't. I found a little independent and we've got all these great reviews in England and now it has gone gold.